Rebel Arms Flow is Said to Benefit Jihadists in Syria

Source: New York Times

WASHINGTON — Most of the arms shipped at the behest of Saudi Arabia and Qatar to supply Syrian rebel groups fighting the government of Bashar al-Assad are going to hard-line Islamic jihadists, and not the more secular opposition groups that the West wants to bolster, according to American officials and Middle Eastern diplomats.

That conclusion, of which President Obama and other senior officials are aware from classified assessments of the Syrian conflict that has now claimed more than 25,000 lives, casts into doubt whether the White House’s strategy of minimal and indirect intervention in the Syrian conflict is accomplishing its intended purpose of helping a democratic-minded opposition topple an oppressive government, or is instead sowing the seeds of future insurgencies hostile to the United States.

“The opposition groups that are receiving the most of the lethal aid are exactly the ones we don’t want to have it,” said one American official familiar with the outlines of those findings, commenting on an operation that in American eyes has increasingly gone awry.

The United States is not sending arms directly to the Syrian opposition. Instead, it is providing intelligence and other support for shipments of secondhand light weapons like rifles and grenades into Syria, mainly orchestrated from Saudi Arabia and Qatar. The reports indicate that the shipments organized from Qatar, in particular, are largely going to hard-line Islamists.

4. In California, like elsewhere inside the US, there is no alternative to the car.

The mass transit grid in the United States could only really be described as decrepit.

The Soviet Union probably had a better mass transit grid than this.

If the United States spent one-fifth as much on mass transit as it does on the defense budget, this country would have a world-class mass transit grid on par with countries such as Germany, France, or Japan.

But we'd rather continue subsidizing oil companies like Exxon-Mobil or BP-Amoco or ConocoPhillips or any other major oil companies in exchange for cheap gasoline. Oh ... wait!!!

They own our politicians. Our whole energy policy is skewed towards fossil fuels because our elections are privately funded, and the rich have a competitive advantage here, and they also own the major news networks and can bend the message.

7. The outcome of that was the Taliban, safehaven for al-Qaeda in Afghanistan, 9/11, and 30 yrs of war.

6. Time to shut down the regime change operation and send the foreign fighters home or to Gitmo.

The Alawite-dominated Ba'ath Party (Syrian Shi'ites) are never going to negotiate any political settlement so long as they are literally under the gun and threat of genocide by armed Sunni foreign-supported Jihadists. They have no choice but to continue fighting for their very survival.

If you want an end to the slaughter on both sides, pressure KSA/GCC and Turkey to withdraw the foreign fighters.